Work begins on the new Portocristo nursery.

Portocristo will have a new preschool for children aged 0 to 3 in a year and a half. This project, long overdue, has suffered several delays due to the municipal government's desire to adapt the space to different functions. The reason is that, in addition to the mandatory educational use, the new building, whose construction began last week, will include the town's new cultural auditorium.

Thus, the City Council has definitively awarded the contract to Poroyecon Galicia SA for a price of €2.6 million, to which must be added VAT of €546,319.58, plus the cost of waste management (€87,363.19) plus 10% of the 10% (€3.2 million). The project has a completion period of 16 months from the date of the staking out verification report.

On February 12, 2025, the Government's Department of Education and Universities submitted the final favorable technical report, which gave the green light to the request for authorization to open and operate the first cycle Infant school (0-3 years) in Buenos Aires, with six units.

According to the technical project report, the works planned between Marina 39-37 streets and Villa Chile 3 street, consist of the construction of a building with a general volume of 32 meters long by 20.15 meters wide and a total height of 13 meters.

The building will be developed on five floors: one underground that can function as a parking lot and four floors above ground level: ground floor, first floor, second floor and roofed floor.

The ground floor will be divided into four zones, with the 0-1 classrooms in the east, the 1-2 classrooms and the 2-3 classrooms in the west, and the kitchen in the north of the building. The first floor will house the multipurpose classroom, the family care classroom, and the auditorium. The number of seats has not yet been specified, but it will represent a notable change from the current cultural center, which does not have fixed seats and has very limited uses. The third floor includes administrative offices.

The total distance between floors will be 3.33 meters on all floors, except for the performance space, which will have a clear height of 6.25 meters, and the central entrance, which has three floors and connects all floors of the building.

Need and Demand

"It was a highly sought-after facility by the educational and cultural community of Portocristo," explains Carme Gomila, Councilor for Education at Manacor City Council, who acknowledges that "it has been very difficult to bring the project forward because it is sometimes complicated to adapt each use and take into account its needs and possibilities. Sometimes the design has to be made more flexible so that everything can be more pleasant," she points out.

For years, there has been a need to provide the center with a nursery school, given the needs of the citizens, both in relation to the increase in population (more than 9,000 registered throughout the year) and the improvement and expansion of neighborhood needs. Furthermore, it is worth remembering that Portocristo is pending the construction of a third primary education center to complement the CEIP Medio de Mar and Ses Comes.

In this regard, the City Council will receive aid for the creation and consolidation of public places in the first cycle of early childhood education, within the program financed by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training and by the European Union-NextGeneration EU, for an amount of 666,000 euros.